When it comes to our overall health and wellbeing, we all know just how beneficial it can be to eat a healthy diet, exercise regularly, avoid smoking and get good quality sleep. All this helps to reduce our risk of severe disease. But are you aware that knowing your family health history can be helpful too?
A basic understanding of potential genetic predispositions can be helpful when it comes to any risk of developing cardiovascular conditions like heart disease or stroke, diabetes or even cancer.
Unlike eating well and exercising regularly, genetic makeup is beyond your control. However, knowing about potential health risks that 'run in the family' can hold helpful cues that you and your doctor can factor into your regular check-ups and health strategy conversations.
Defining family health history as a risk factor
"Family health history is basically a record of medical conditions or diseases that have occurred in your family through several generations," says Dr Noluthando Nematswerani, Discovery Health's Chief Clinical Officer.
"If you have some health history from parents, brothers, sisters, children, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins and grandparents, this can be helpful."
"Of course, there are numerous possible causes for any health condition or disease and family history isn't a defining factor for this on its own. But it can be one of several reasons common disease complexes occur in some blood lines."
"Cardiovascular disease, blood clots, diabetes and cancer are some health conditions where family history can be helpful for understanding overall risk factors on an individual basis. Autoimmune disorders, like asthma or arthritis, cancer and psychiatric illnesses like depression, Alzheimer's or dementia are some others," she explains further.
Each of us inherits a complex set of genes from our parents, and these, along with environmental factors, can serve as good predictors of disease risk. Inherited genetic variation can contribute both directly and indirectly to a person's individual risk of possible disease at some stage during a lifetime. Shared lifestyle habits that families may experience within a common environment can also affect overall health.
Family health history is not the same for everyone. But there are interesting factors that may increase risk for a particular health condition, such as:
- Presence of specific diseases that have occurred in more than one close relative.
- Diseases can occur 10 to 20 years before most people are typically diagnosed with it (occurs earlier than expected in relation to overall, more generalised risks for that condition)
- Combinations of diseases are present within a family, such as diabetes and cardiovascular problems, or breast and ovarian cancer.
What is the benefit of knowing your family health history?
While not a definite indicator, your family health history does hold important clues about potential risk. It provides insight into disorder or health condition patterns among blood relatives. This can be helpful for earlier medical intervention (where necessary) and regular screening strategies specific to you. Some screening recommendations may be encouraged at an earlier age, especially where cancer is concerned, for instance. It can also flag potential increased risk (i.e., higher than usual chance) for certain conditions like hypertension, heart disease, stroke, some cancers, and type 2 diabetes in future generations.
"Such conditions are influenced by a combination of genetic factors alongside environmental conditions and lifestyle choices," adds Dr Nematswerani. "However, common conditions in the family are not considered a guaranteed risk for individuals. It's merely an increased risk and not an absolute indicator that a person will develop a particular condition even if family patterns are evident.," she explains further. "Just the same, as an example, a person with no family history of such conditions can also develop heart disease or cancer. Multiple risk factors are at play and the risk ultimately depends on an individual's overall condition."
However, if condition patterns are known, physicians will also stress the importance of appropriate lifestyle habits for healthier outcomes, especially where serious and complex to treat diseases are flagged.
"In most instances, healthier lifestyle choices can help to reduce any family health history risk factors," adds Dr Nematswerani. "The power of such choices should never be underestimated. Combined with an appropriate individualised screening strategy that factors in family history health risks, your odds are in a far better place to either catch something early enough to treat more successfully, or even prevent altogether."
"Consider your family health history as part of a holistic risk prevention package. What you know, you can manage better. Anything that can help improve your outcome odds is worth it."
How to collate your family health history
Talking to your relatives is the most obvious place to start. Try and determine what kinds of health problems they've experienced and when in their lives they experienced them. Family medical records are useful where you can source them. For those relatives who have passed on, you can also obtain copies of death certificates which usually includes a cause of death that may be related to a health condition. From there, you may be able to identify common health issues and patterns to discuss with your healthcare provider.
What information should you focus on?
- Major medical conditions
- Health-related cause of death
- Age of disease onset and age of death
- Ethnic background (there are varying levels of risk for certain conditions among different ethnic groups)
- Shared environments and how it can impact health (e.g. Do you and your family live close to a mining site?)
"There's a good chance, there will be gaps in information you're able to pull together. That's ok. An incomplete history is still useful. Your physician will use their medical knowledge to help bridge some of those gaps for your risk profile and advise your accordingly," says Dr Nematswerani.
...Then what?
"What a healthcare professional will take note of includes things like whether your family line shows any major medical conditions which may or may not have resulted in death, the age of disease onset and whether treatment was successful or not and if such illnesses were indeed a cause of death," Dr Nematswerani explains.
"From there, your physician will use the information alongside all other individual risk factors related to your health profile. Lifestyle adjustments are a typical recommendation for everyone, but you may also find that your doctor recommends certain screening tests - for instance at an earlier age than may be typically prescribed because of a condition that flags in your family history. Cardiovascular and cancer conditions are some this may apply to. So, if you are at increased risk of developing colon cancer, colonoscopies may be recommended for you and screening recommended earlier than is typical for the broader population. to catch the cancer earlier should it develop. This improves your chances of survival," she adds.
"Family health history is important because in some instances it can be the preventive sign you need to spot an inherited form of a disease which can be passed from one generation to another. Where not necessarily inherited, changing unhealthy behaviours can go a long way in reducing any degree of risk."
How can you use this knowledge during your regular health checks?
"Go for your checks and don't put them off for another day. Health checks should be an annual habit. Like any other habit, once broken, there's more room for unhealthy things to happen in your life. If you have a family history of specific health issues, you have the most to gain from regular screenings and healthier lifestyle choices. Knowledge is power in this case. So, use it to your advantage."
"Watch for flags - high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels. Or even elevated blood sugar levels. Share your Health Check report with your doctor as soon as possible - especially if something has been flagged during your check-up Then take their recommended guidance from there."
Dr Nematswerani continues, "So, if you haven't yet booked this year's Health Check, do so today and see to it that you have your blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar levels and BMI checked. An optional and confidential HIV test is also included and worth doing. Book those dental check-ups, mammograms, pap smears and other cancer - related screenings, too. Family history risk or not, they're essential for us all."
And when you book and go for your Health Check, you automatically unlock access to Discovery Health Medical Scheme's WELLTH Fund Benefit an additional benefit that is all about investing in your own health. Available for a limited time, this discretionary benefit gives you and your family additional funding for essential screenings that enable you to take the very best care of you.
All medical information found on this website, including content, graphics, and images, is for educational and informational objectives only. Discovery Health publishes this content to help and to empower patients and their families. The views expressed by all the contributing healthcare providers are their independent, professional medical opinions, aimed at supporting patients. These views do not necessarily constitute the views of Discovery Health.